Man sentenced to life in stabbing death

William Denzel Thornton guilty of killing ex-girlfriend.

In January 2017, a woman was stabbed more than 50 times and left to die in her car near her home in Carroll County.

Her ex-boyfriend has received two life sentences, one without the possibility of parole, after he was convicted of murdering her, prosecutors said.

William Denzel Thornton was convicted Friday of malice murder, armed robbery and possession of a knife during the commission of a crime in the death of Jullisa Cooke, according to prosecutors.

“These good citizens have made it perfectly clear that Carroll County will not tolerate the behavior of violent and dangerous criminals, like this defendant,” District Attorney Herb Cranford said in a news release.

The morning Cooke was found dead, Thornton knocked on the front door of her grandmother’s house and was seen by the grandmother and others to be wearing clothes that were later found to be “soaked” in Cooke’s blood, according to the release.

Cooke’s cellphone was missing from the crime scene. Later that day, investigators went to Thornton’s residence. While near a garbage bin at the apartment, they called the number of Cooke’s cellphone and heard it vibrating inside the bin, according to prosecutors.

Authorities recovered the phone along with Thornton’s bloody clothing, a bloody knife and a pair of bloody gloves issued to him by his employer. DNA testing identified the blood as that of Cooke.

Thornton was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the murder conviction, life imprisonment for the armed robbery conviction, and five years in prison for the conviction of possessing the knife.

The sentences are the maximum allowed by Georgia law, prosecutors said.

Herb Cranford